Death is Not a Taboo, but Grief Is

Column: Grief or MadnessShadowlossGriefThanatologyFood
Written By Cole Imperi

I’m often asked what I think about America and its taboo around death. It’s my opinion that Americans don’t have a taboo around death at all. The taboo is actually around grief.

If America had a taboo around death, it wouldn’t be plastered everywhere.

In America, death is part of our cultural centerpiece. Death saturates American TV shows, movies, books and podcasts. Our news media couldn’t survive without it. The True Crime genre in particular is telling. True Crime is a media genre that combines real-life trauma with a format that makes it both entertaining and easy to consume. True Crime converts victims into entertainers, often without their consent. One in three Americans say they consume true crime content at least once a week. If the taboo around grief didn’t exist, I think we’d have less of this kind of content. If the grief was discussed in as much detail as the death (or in the case of true crime…the murder) I would bet that the true crime genre might look a little different.

But, we don’t talk about the grief because the grief is what makes us uncomfortable.

So, we instead focus on the death.

Death holds our attention until the grief shows up, and that’s when we look away.

“Half of Americans Enjoy True Crime, and More Agree It Helps Solve Cold Cases | YouGov.” Accessed March 3, 2023. https://today.yougov.com/topics/entertainment/articles-reports/2022/09/14/half-of-americans-enjoy-true-crime-yougov-poll.

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It's my opinion that Americans don't have a taboo around death at all. The taboo is actually around grief.
written by thanatologist Cole Imperi grief or madness is a column about life through the lens of grief
We don't talk about the grief because the grief is what makes us uncomfortable. So, we instead focus on the death.
Death holds our attention until the grief shows up and that's when we look away.
Cole Imperi

Cole Imperi is a triple-certified thanatologist, a two-time TedX speaker, and one of America’s experts on death, dying and grief. She is best known for her work pioneering the fields of Thanabotany and Deathwork (which includes Death Companioning) and through her development of Shadowloss, Shadowlight and Dremains. Cole is the founder of the School of American Thanatology, which has students from 20 countries across 12 timezones. Cole has worked as a chaplain-thanatologist in a jail, mortuary college professor, crematory operator, hospice volunteer, grief support group leader for children as young as 3 to adults, and served on the board of a green burial startup. Cole served as the first female Board President of the 178-year-old Historic Linden Grove Cemetery & Arboretum in Covington, Kentucky, works with death-related businesses through her consulting firm, Doth, and publishes death and loss-related content. Her forthcoming book, A Guide to Your Grief, will be published by Kids Can Press in 2024.

https://coleimperi.com
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